There Might Be Some Life In This World Series Yet

This World Series felt like it was in danger of losing its steam, as they all do when one team begins forcefully applying a throw pillow to the face of the other. The Milwaukee Brewers had kept the Tampa Bay Devil (yeah, we said it) Rays at arm’s length through each of the first three games, and even though those had been interesting and even occasionally wacky games, they all ended the same way. The specter of a cold winter and uncertain spring loomed larger with each evening’s parade of invincible Brewers relievers.

Thus, the desperate need for a complete and utter piefight in Game 4, with extra innings, bonfires in both bullpens, a hilarious ending followed by a more hilarious ending to that ending, and, best of all, an additional game of baseball. Game 5 is tonight, and will be played between two teams that now seem just a bit better matched than they had four-and-a-half hours earlier.

The basic cadaver of the story is this: Tampa won Game 4 by the score of 4-3, in 12 innings. In so doing they extended the Series at least another day and put off the moment when everyone who cares about baseball will have to start thinking about the impending lockout. But the autopsy is always about the details, and it is the way in which the Rays went about the business of desperate flailing that breathed new life and interest into what had become a slightly too clinical clash of champions.